


Tales from the Border Sea

by Otter_Seastar



Category: Keys to the Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Violence, Original Character(s), Pirates, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otter_Seastar/pseuds/Otter_Seastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backstories, and a rewritten fate, for Drowned Lady Wednesday and those who serve her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Healing

**Author's Note:**

> My mind is in the Border Sea and my allegiance belongs to the Lady Leviathan, but they in turn are owned by Garth Nix. 
> 
> I begin with the canonically-heartbreaking penultimate scene in Drowned Wednesday, where Arthur faces her beside Suzy, Leaf, and the Carp…

“Be as you were,” Arthur commanded, pointing the Third Key at Lady Wednesday. “When you were never hungry, when the Architect was still here.”

Her limbs slimmed again, but she didn’t uncurl. “Poisoned…by Nothing…”

“BE HEALED IN BODY AND MIND!” The trident heated and trembled violently in his hands, but he held it firm, envisioning the ruptured worldlet in her stomach vanishing into the Void without a trace. “Be cleansed of Nothing, of hunger, of everything!”

The tiny _Rattus Balaena_ fell from her mouth. With the Key, he directed it to one side before it became full-sized, and kept it afloat as the Rats and an exhausted Doctor Scamandros launched and scrambled onto an inflated raft. Then it crumbled to Nothing and was banished.

When he turned back to Wednesday, she was on her feet and smiling. “I’m healed, Lord Arthur. Of everything.” She pirouetted, arms flung wide and head thrown back. “I’ll never eat again!”

“I doubt that,” someone said in the huge group of Denizens treading water a short distance away.

“ _Return to me, my Followers! You are no longer in danger!”_ bellowed the Carp. A cacophony of splashes drew nearer in response.

A winged golden shark appeared on the horizon and flew to them, circling above them like an excited puppy before transforming into a winged woman and swooping down to clasp her lady’s hands.

“Your lonely days are over, my Dawn.” Wednesday turned to Arthur. “I will need a new Noon and Dusk.”

“I was thinking of a professional sailor called Sunscorch for—“

“NO!” two voices called in unison.

Two Followers of the Carp swam forward – a black-haired female Denizen and a blonde girl who had to be a Piper’s child. Arthur lifted them, along with Leaf and Suzy, from the water to stand beside him. “Who are you, and what’s your objection?”

The Denizen knelt, facing Wednesday. “I am Chiasa, former First Mate of the _Cuttlefish._ I have sailed in your service all my life, until Feverfew sank my ship and enslaved me in your inner worldlet. But I long to leave all land and ships, to roam across and within the Border Sea, and to work by your side tending it as best we can. I beg you to take me as your Noon.”

The girl remained standing, and then knelt when Chiasa poked her shin. “I’m Jennie Barnacle Scraper, former ship’s boy on the _Cuttlefish._ I never served you before, ‘cause I’d have just been serving _myself_ to you as a snack, though I ended up in your stomach anyway, but I go where Chiasa goes and now I want to go under the sea and be your Dusk. “

“No Piper’s child can be a Time,” Wednesday said disdainfully. “An impossible job for you, and undignified for me. But you may be my Noon, Chiasa.”

Arthur turned to Scamandros. “Doctor, would you like the job?”

“Dusk.” A sun appeared on Scamandros’s forehead and slid down to disappear below a sea-horizon by his left ear. A crescent moon rose from the sea by his right ear. “I would be honored, Lord Arthur.”

“But—” Jennie protested.

“You could be a Tierce like me,” Suzy suggested.

“What do you do?”

Suzy grinned. “Whatever I want, mostly.”

“You would not do ‘whatever you want’ as _my_ Tierce,” Wednesday said. “You would be my messenger throughout the Sea, House, and Secondary Realms, and help Noon in every way you can.”

“Great! I get along with everyone.” She leaned close to Arthur and whispered “Even the Raised Rats.”

 _Yes,_ Arthur thought. _The Rats are hated by Wednesday and her Dawn, but friendly with all Piper’s children_. It would be good to have someone in power who valued them as allies and would have no wish to antagonize them. “What do the rest of you think?”

Chiasa smiled. “Jennie Barnacle is as tenacious as her name and as smart as a Denizen, and has always been curious about you, milady. She would serve you well.”

“Then you may be my Tierce, Jennie,” said Wednesday. “But if you prove more trouble than you’re worth, I’ll eat – no, feed you to her.” She pointed at Dawn, who obligingly took winged-shark form for a moment and then became a woman again, still baring her teeth in a grin.

Chiasa sighed. “I wish I could do that,”

“You and Dusk can learn,” said Dawn. “Teaching you would be my pleasure.”

“Can I learn, too?” asked Jennie.

“No. But with the Key, you can be made able to breathe water as well as air. Lord Arthur, will you do so?”

Arthur hesitated. He’d done what was necessary, but was reluctant to inch farther toward becoming a Denizen. “I’m…afraid of sorcerous contamination…”

“Do this for my loyal Follower,” commanded the Carp.

Dawn frowned. “If you won’t do this small bit of sorcery, how do you intend to restrain and rule the Border Sea?”

“I don’t. I’m going home, after giving stewardship of the Key to—” He stopped. He’d been about to say “Dame Primus,” but the team of five people around him knew and loved the sea far better, and he trusted one of them far more. “Scamandros. Are you willing?”

“I – of course, if you wish it.”

“You can’t do that!” screamed the Carp, its moustache-tendrils writhing.

“Your first part didn’t want the job when given it.” Ignoring its protests, he pressed the trident into Scamandros’s hands, speaking the words which transferred his power. Everyone immediately sank, until Scamandros raised them again.

“Ships coming,” said a Rat on the raft, peering through a small telescope. “Five of ours, and a strange one…with the Mariner aboard!”

“I hope they’ll take us all to Port Wednesday,” said Arthur. “Then the Carp can join Parts One and Two of the Will, and these three thousand Denizens can—“

“—start rebuilding,” Scamandros finished. “Without a – well – with these changes, much of the land will no longer be submerged. Buildings converted to ships can perhaps be re-transformed, and their operation resumed; ships can be built for the lifelong sailors who’ve lost them. I will come to check the progress later, but will first secure the boundaries of the sea while my companions spread the word of our lady’s return. Miss Jennie, I will now ensorcell you to breathe underwater and find for you the waterproof stick-on wings which I believe are somewhere in my coat. Then I must rest.”

“So must I,” said Wednesday. “I can’t remember the last time I stopped eating for even an hour.”

* * *

Wednesday lay floating, eyes closed, savoring the sky’s warmth on her face, the feel of her hair swirling gently around her, and the absence of hunger-pain in her belly. Her Times lounged on the _Balaena_ ’s raft a discrete distance away. Scamandros dozed, tattooed fish drifting across his face, as the others sat gazing out to sea. Everyone else had left.

Tears sparkled in Dawn’s eyes. “It’s so good to see her happy, free of the need to eat.”

“That’s silly,” Jennie grumbled. “Eating is fun.”

Dawn glanced sharply at her. “ _Eating_ may be fun. Incessant, insatiable _hunger_ is agony, especially when you spend thousands of years able only to feed it with slimy little fish and wriggling sea-bugs.”

“Insatiable,” Chiasa mused. “But now she can eat to satiation, and eat good food. I hope she’ll enjoy doing so someday.”

Dawn snorted. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I won’t need to hold my breath,” Jennie declared. “Not ever again.” She stood and dove into the sea.

Chiasa sprang up with a curse and looked down. The girl hovered several feet below, chest moving as if she breathed. Soon she surfaced. “See?”

Chiasa hauled her out by the shirt, nearly capsizing the raft. “Don’t scare me like that again!”

“Then don’t _get_ scared again, because I won’t drown. I can live in the sea if I want, like those scaly people we saw in the Stomach.”

“They’re called Nisser, I told you. Wednesday’s guards, who all were eaten.”

“Not all of them,” said Dawn. “Some were far enough away when she transformed, and have been living in the most barren part of the sea, where she never went to feed. Now we must go to them and take them back into her service.”

“Wonderful!” Chiasa’s eyes gleamed. “I always liked them.”

“Mind you, much more of the sea has since been made barren by our lady’s feasting. We must tend the remaining populations of sea life and help them spread again. There’s so much work to do…”

Chiasa put an arm around Dawn’s shoulders as Jennie leaned against her other side. “Together we’ll get it done.”


	2. Cuttlefish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jennie's backstory

I walk along the wharf of surprisingly-small Port Wednesday, toward a row of docked ships. Feathery clouds sprawl across the wide blue sky and birds fly squealing in circles above glittering waves. I also want to run in circles and scream with joy, but nobody would hire a child acting so, well, childish.

I’ve just been discharged from the Glorious Army of the Architect after serving my hundred years. Some things there were fun, like exploring the Great Maze’s many little habitats and living with other Piper’s children. But I didn’t like wearing armor and weapons, fighting Nithlings, pointless rituals like shaving, constantly fearing a summons from deadly Sir Thursday, or – I’ve probably forgotten most of it, having been washed between the ears three months ago. But I wrote down my love of the Border Sea, and never forgot it, and now I’m returning there to stay.

The _Rattus Navis III_ is docked, its crew loading it for the next voyage. They wave and call greetings, which I return. I’d love to work on a Rat ship – they’re friendly to Piper’s children and don’t literally or figuratively look down on us like Denizens – but they never need non-Rat sailors, so I move on.

At the row’s end is a big, beautiful ship with a wavy rainbow band painted across each sail and “Cuttlefish” in curly blue letters on the prow. Approaching, I hear splashing on the far side – has someone fallen in? I race past it and look down a short, rocky slope at a Denizen-woman thrashing around in the water.

I scramble down to the water, calling “Are you all right?” Not that I can do much if she isn’t.

“Of course!” She swims toward shore. “Just having a swim. You’re welcome to join me.”

“I really want to, but…” I don’t want to get my clothes salty and slimy when I might not get the chance to wash them for a while, and am afraid to swim naked where there could be barnacles and sharp rocks. So I only bare my feet and sit to dip them in the warm sea, which swirls deliciously around them.

She emerges onto the rocks beside me, her shirt and breeches instantly turning clean and dry – lucky! Water streams from her long black hair, vanishing when it hits her shirt. “I’m Chiasa, First Mate of the _Cuttlefish_. We’re on leave after selling our cargo, and swimming is my idea of fun.”

“I’m Jennie Barnacle Scraper, former ship’s boy of the _I Forgot What Ship_ and future ship’s boy of the _I Haven’t Found It Yet_. What kind of fish is a cuttle?”

“Not a fish, but a small animal much like a squid. She’s one of Lady Wednesday’s original merchant ships, and still makes trading voyages to the Secondary Realms.”

“Do you meet with Wednesday a lot, then?”

She looks puzzled. “Of course not, ever since…don’t you know?”

I shake my head. “Had a hundred years in the army and a washing between the ears.”

“And perhaps your former crew never told you; some don’t like to speak of it. But…” she leans close to me and whispers, “Our lady is a whale now.”

I can almost feel my eyes bulge. “ _What?!_ ”

“She was a voracious eater who used the Third Key to stay human-sized. Thousands of years ago, the other Trustees took most of its power from her, and she was transformed to fit her appetite.”

“I would eat nonstop if it turned me into a whale!”

She laughs. “Don’t try it.”

“I won’t get the chance. Ship’s boys probably don’t get fed _that_ well, though I hope we don’t get starved for a year like Army recruits.”

“The _Cuttlefish_ has no ship’s boy. Would you like to be ours?”

I hesitate. She’s uncommonly nice, but I need to be careful when choosing the ship which I could live on forever.

She looks at my wave-washed feet. “I’ll have self-cleaning clothes cut to fit you, though I’ll take them away if you skip chores to swim.”

That does it. I hand her my coat and plunge in, slithering over seaweedy rocks into bright depths, diving and splashing and flipping, backstroking to squirt a mouthful of water in the air. It tastes disgusting, but if I were a whale, I wouldn’t mind. Eventually, I tire and swim back to her.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” she asks, helping me onto the rocks.

“Aye, aye!”

“Wonderful! She’s a good ship with a fine crew, and you’ll be as safe as possible with us. But I warn you, the sea is dangerous nowadays. Pirates run rampant, though they mostly prey on lesser ships, and great eddies of Nothing leak in from the Void. Our lady is unable to control either of them, using the Key’s remaining power only to keep herself from growing as big as the sea.”

“How does she carry the Key if she’s a whale?”

She frowns. “I never wondered that.”

Denizens rarely wonder about anything, so I’m used to that answer. “So where are we going next?”

“To an ocean-covered world for the fruits of their underwater gardens, and a port in another world for jewels and spices. You’ll get to see new sights and I’ll make sure you get to eat new foods.”

“Do you think we might spot Whaley-Wednesday somewhere?”

She grabs my shoulders. “Don’t call her that!” she hisses, green eyes fierce.

“Why not?”

“It’s considered very disrespectful. You Piper’s children may have trouble with the concept of ‘respect,’ but you’ll still get clouted on the ear by a sailor’s powerful fist if any of crew hear you say it. Many Denizens call her ‘Drowned Wednesday,’ but we don’t, as she’s very much alive. Call her ‘Lady Wednesday’ or ‘our lady.’”

Denizens are weird.

“No, I haven’t seen her since she took to the water. Everyone stays well away from her, as she’s one hundred and twenty-six miles long with a mouth ten miles wide, and still eats everything in her path.”

“Wow, she’s even more dangerous than Sir Thursday.”

“She was always dangerous, and wild. But she used to be wise and good-natured as well, a glorious lady who loved to sail, swim, tend the sea…and eat, before hunger overpowered all else in her mind. Now she can _only_ swim and eat.” A tear slides down her cheek. “She was my friend.”

I take her hand. “ _I’ll_ be your friend now.”

She wraps me in a sideways hug, which I return, her body shaking as if she’s struggling not to sob aloud. Then she swings me up onto the wharf, tosses me my coat and shoes, and climbs up to join me, and together we walk toward the _Cuttlefish._

* * *

I stand at the rail, gazing at a shining blue-white path of moonlight across night-blackened waves. Masts rattle softly behind me. Far away, a flying fish leaps and glides in a silver streak, submerging with a small splash.

I’ve been aboard the _Cuttlefish_ for ten years, or maybe twenty; it’s hard to tell. We crisscross the Border Sea to salvage the diseases enjoyed by Denizens bored enough with their eternal unchanging jobs to welcome _anything_ new (I think they’re ridiculous) and visit the Secondary Realms to buy goods. I love seeing bits of other worlds – lakes and seas and skies and ships, port towns and shorelines, people and animals -- though I’m rarely allowed to go far from the ship, and Chiasa buys me delicious local foods like seafood stews, strange sandwiches, fried vegetables, and blood oranges. Whenever we cross the Line of Storms, I clutch the rail and wriggle with glee in the chaos of light and sound. Chiasa tries to answer my questions about everything, and helped me to relearn the work of a ship’s boy, which does include scraping barnacles and other creatures from the hull. We swim together whenever the ship is anchored in water which isn’t too rough or cold.

Visiting Earth always makes me a little sad, though. At every port, I wonder – is _this_ where I lived before the Piper took me to the House? Is this before or after my time, or could I meet someone who once knew me? All I remember of that before-life is a home near an ocean and a mother who loved me.

And doing this forever doesn’t seem so great anymore. I feel like I’ve seen the whole Border Sea – but only its surface and shallows. I ache to see what’s below: animals and habitats and lost things too big to float, whatever now lives in drowned Port Wednesday, and the whale herself. That blank blue sheet will never stop teasing me. I’d do anything for a trip on the _Rattus Balaena_!

Footsteps draw near. “What are you doing?” Chiasa asks, behind me.

I don’t turn. “Looking for flying fish. And _not_ flying sharks.”

She sighs. “Jennie, please stop sulking and get some rest.”

“That was Wednesday’s Dawn! _Why didn’t you let me talk to her?_ ” When that creature leaped from the waves, glittering gold in the morning light, I thought I’d never seen anything so marvelous. But then she became a winged woman, and the captain and Chiasa greeted her by name, and they all went into the chart room and slammed the door in my face.

“Because you would’ve pestered her her with questions. We had important business to conduct, and she has no time to spare. These days, the well-being of the entire sea rests on her shoulders.”

“Fins.”

“Yes, fins. And wings.”

“She travels under the sea and sees what lives there! She’s the only one who’s talked with Wednesday in ages! There’s so much she must know…”

“Look, I always envied her too. And Noon and Dusk, before they were swallowed. But we all do what we were made for, in the House.”

“I wasn’t _made_ for doing anything.” Swiping tears from my eyes, I stare at the setting moon. The silhouette of a distant ship moves across it, then the ship curves around and moves swiftly toward us. A ship with its colors backward – a pale hull and dark sails.

Fingers dig into my shoulder. I look back at Chiasa’s hand and up into her face – paler than usual, teeth bared, eyes round and shining with moonlight.

“The _Shiver_ ,” she says quietly.   



	3. Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday's Dawn's backstory, before and during Wednesday's whale-time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I were a canon Keys to the Kingdom character, I would be Wednesday’s Dawn. But her life has long been difficult. This is her story.

I glide through the Border Sea’s blue infinity, wings folded tight against my back. Fish flee to the depths; a distant sea turtle spots me and changes course. But they have nothing to fear. I haven’t eaten since the Deluge, when the curse of eating took my lady from me.

I’m weary. Today, I mediated a dispute between two merchants in Port Wednesday, checked on a warehouse being renovated, exerted my sorcerous powers to the limit sealing a small hole between sea and Void, and drove a small-time pirate ship from the salvage vessel it was pursuing by flying low over it, shouting and gnashing my shark-teeth. I’ve often slept on secluded beaches in the Secondary Realms, but now seek the one place where I can truly rest.

Leaping through the mirrored surface, I spread my wings and wheel to look around. I’m in approximately the right place at the right time, but can never be sure…

A white plume rises in the distance.

“Yes!” I fly in that direction at top speed. She’s risen to breathe; perhaps she’ll stay --

But only her flukes break the surface, flinging out sheets of glittering spray before sliding vertically down into the sea.

“No, no, no!” I mutter. She’s diving deep --

But not too deep to be faintly visible when I reach her, a vast patch of paler blue. I hover at that border, upwind of it, impatient.

At last, she erupts like a volcanic island forming in moments instead of millennia. She exhales a hot, fetid cloud which drifts away on the breeze.

I position myself too far back to be seen but sufficiently far forward to avoid the steady up-and-down of her tail. Taking aim at the space between flank and flipper, I dive straight down, wings absorbed into my back before I strike the water.

Instantly, I’m caught in her powerful slipstream, tumbling in loops until I can angle myself to be carried downward as well as backward. Tail pumping furiously, I thrust down and down until I’m level with her underside, then turn perpendicular to the current and get beneath her.

Remoras cling to her belly, long lead-grey fish riding with her to snap up food-scraps and plankton which evade her mouth. Molding my back into a suction disk like theirs, I arch up to press myself against her and stick.

I relax. Water continues flowing through my gills. Her flesh is warm, and I feel the faraway beating of her great heart…or maybe just imagine it. She doesn’t know I’m here, but it’s the only way I can touch her.

Isolated from all the cares of all the worlds, I sink into memories of those I love, so close and yet so far.

* * *

 

_My sisters lie behind that white wall…_

Noon was mischievous, fond of flying low over Rat ships to snap at Rats who didn’t dare retaliate, and liked to bask at the sea’s surface on warm, quiet days. Dusk said less but saw more, sometimes going off alone across twilit waters, and I treasured every thought she chose to share. Created consecutively to captain three of the Architect’s finest trading ships, we were friends since before we were Times, back when our names were Ephyra, Laminaria, and Littorina.

We tried to visit our home ports at the same time, to walk the shores and discuss our travels, though merchants and handlers complained about being flooded (hah) with the goods we brought. Littorina, who liked to experiment with sorcery, figured out how to take shark form and shared her discovery with us. We perfected the process together, then raced and chased each other through sea and sky.

Wednesday -- Galea, then – ruled the demesne as the Architect’s steward. But she had been infused with too much love for the sea to be satisfied with her administrative duties on land. So she took any excuse to ride out on one of her ships: to check on the borders, investigate a popular port in the Secondary Realms, or ascertain that her police were doing their jobs. My own ship, the _Cuttlefish_ , soon became her favorite. How I miss those times!

When she was made a Trustee of the Architect’s Will and chose us as her highest servants, our happiness only grew. Our first mates became captains and we left the confines of our ships, to roam as we chose. The work was easy when divided among four, especially since we could travel swiftly and independently undersea , though I strove to seldom go far from Wednesday‘s side. For a century or so, we were content.

Then her hunger began.

It was treated lightly at first. Other Denizens don’t truly feel hunger, so they don’t take it seriously. When eating, they raised their forks in her honor and jested that she had “blessed” those who especially enjoyed their food. She reveled in her newfound passion, savored all she ate -- including the seafood she’s so tired of now -- and held feasts for the higher-ranking Denizens.

But as her eating grew frantic and undignified, she increasingly chose to dine alone or with us. Trade came to a standstill and debts mounted as her fleet spent all of their time importing food for her from the Secondary Realms. Sometimes she would give them a rest and slip off to do her own foraging; I shudder to imagine what she must have done to who-knows-how-many worlds. And the un-tended sea spread ever outward across its borders.

I don’t wish to think about what happened next.

* * *

 

Early in the Deluge, when we all thought she had actually drowned (yet kept growing, as the sea rose) or else become a mindless monster, I went wild with grief. I ran along the shrinking shore, calling her name and theirs, lashing my whip at anyone who approached. A servant without the one I served, I had little power despite my high precedence. Of her high officials in Port Wednesday at the time, I alone had happened to be just out of her mouth’s reach when she transformed. My former crew tried to comfort me, but most others expressed outrage that I cared what had become of her after the destruction she’d wrought. Their voices still echo in my mind:

_“She ate your sisters! She ate my captain…my ship’s boy…my supervisor…my friend…my lover. She drowned my restaurant …she smashed my ship…”_

Soon, I could bear it no longer. Taking shark form, I slipped into the sea and wandered aimlessly, leaping to wheel in the empty sky, dipping in and out of the Secondary Realms. Weeks passed, and I lost track of my place in time and space.

Then one day, I returned to the Border Sea and thought I must have accidentally gone somewhere else, for a white shape filled the horizon. An iceberg? What was an iceberg doing in this warm water? I ascended three miles, for a high view of –

Her.

A whale. A majestic Leviathan. White as the coral sands of Mincalu, longer than the largest pre-Deluge island in the Border Sea, swimming half-submerged with ponderous grace. And eating; the water was purpled with clouds of krill in front of her and cleanly blue in her wake.

In human form, I flew to her head and swooped down, fluttering high above one of her iridescent eyes. “Milady? Milady, is that you? It’s me, your Dawn! Ephyra! Do you know me? Please show you know me! Please! Milady!”

Slowly, the eye’s pupil swiveled up toward me. It stared for a while, black and expressionless as the Void. Then it moved in an unnatural circle, in one direction and then the other.

“You _do_!” I plunged down –

Her mouth opened.

Up and up, water coursing down vast sheets of bone with holes the size of small ships. I screamed and fled upward, flight muscles burning, almost to the ceiling. She lowered her head and swam on.

She recognized me -- and had still tried to eat me. Her stomach demanded everything that would fit in her mouth, overpowering all objections by her mind. Alive but suffering, she remained lost to me. Unless I found a way for us to communicate at a distance.

Well, she seemed to have excellent hearing and fine control of her eyes. I descended to two miles above her and sorcerously amplified my voice. “Milady. I know I can’t go near you, but I want to talk with you. Do you think you could talk to me with your eyes? If so, then please do that -- that circle thing again.”

She did.

For many hours, I kept pace with her as we worked out what motions she could make and what we most needed her to say. I began to falter and dip with exhaustion, persevered as long as possible, and then put my last strength into flying as far back from her head as I could before plummeting down to crumple painfully upon her back. Lying on that slick expanse, buffeted by waves washing over her, I resolved not to push myself so hard.

When I could fly again, we resumed. When asked what I could do for her, she eventually made clear her wish for me to rule the Border Sea as best I could. I didn’t want to leave her, but couldn’t disobey.

* * *

 

I returned to the mountaintop remnant of Port Wednesday and strode up the shore in official regalia, no longer a broken castoff but the proud sole voice of the demesne’s highest living authority. New docks had been built and drowned buildings converted to ships; I felt a twinge of guilt at not having assisted. But ships filled the docks while hundreds of Denizens wandered around bickering, lamenting their losses, picking haphazardly at washed-up flotsam – in short, acting as Denizens do after losing the only job they’ve ever known. Many were professional sailors, who had lost their ships in the great waves from Wednesday’s transformation or were unwilling to voyage out with nowhere to sell or store their goods upon returning. Clusters of ships’ boys sat making impertinent commentary on the situation. Circling above the island with my voice amplified, I called everyone together on the largest piece of open ground and descended to address them.

“Denizens of the Border Sea. You knew me as Captain Ephyra, and as Wednesday’s Dawn. And I am still Wednesday’s Dawn, for I am pleased to tell you that our lady is alive and strong.”

This did not have the effect I’d hoped for. Mutters ran through the crowd. “How is that possible?” “But the sea hasn’t subsided,” “Where is she, then?”

“Quiet!” I snapped. “She remains…physically transformed for now. But she _lives_ and thinks and swims and eats. To protect you, she is regrettably keeping her distance. But I have worked out a way to communicate with her from afar, and will rule in her stead.”

“Take orders from a _whale_?” “What would she want us to do, besides go where she can eat us?” “How do we know you’re not lying?”

“SILENCE!” I lashed my whip, gashing the face of the nearest shouting Denizen. As he stumbled back against someone else, blood flowing down to blue his shirt front, I scowled at the rest. “I last saw her a hundred miles due east of Swirleen Deep, moving northward. You can believe me, or go see for yourself and get your ships swallowed whole – or crushed by her jaws if they’re too big, because she’ll try anyway. But she has tasked me with the care of the sea and of you sorry lot. You can accept my authority or forego my service.”

That worked. Denizens are designed to obey their superiors, and they decided not to risk my wrath in case I actually _could_ set her on them. Thus began thankless millennia of trying to do everything, everywhere. I stocked the new ships with crews of their former workers – some scared, some excited to try something new, all clueless – distributed newly-shipless sailors to look after them, recruited a few Sorcerers from the other demesnes to assist, and bade the remaining landlubbers rebuild their facilities on the mountainside.

Things were soon running again, giving me countless ordinary duties. Improvising and working from limited experience, I often sought Wednesday with questions. Our code expanded and she settled into a migration pattern following her prey, but the work never became easier or less lonely.

* * *

 

Years later, flying over a remote part of the Border Sea, I spotted a slim green man-shape climb out onto a flat rock a hundred feet across. I descended, gladly crying “Nisser!” He snatched a trident from the rock beside him, then recognized me and gave an ululating call. Dark-haired heads rose from the water and creatures came swimming from all directions to emerge and stand around me – scaly men and women, with webbed hands and feet, in dark blue tunics and short leggings. Marine-dwelling Denizens, guardians of the sea.

Most had been too near Wednesday at her moment of transformation, lost in her first great gulps. None had been seen since then, so we believed she had eaten the rest. Now they told me that one had, like me, been just out of her reach. He had fled, swum to those stationed at other ports and patrol boats, and warned them of the new predator. They had gathered and taken refuge in the deep, calm water where nutrients were never stirred up from the depths and no plankton lived to nourish a whale’s prey.

But when asked to serve me in her absence, they shook their heads and bared sharp teeth in defiance. They serve only the wielder of the Third Key, and refused to accept me as her commanding representative after one of them had seen her become an apparently-mindless ravening whale.

“Do not doubt our loyalty and courage,” their leader told me. “We would die for her if need be. But she is now too large and fierce to need our protection. She cannot speak to us with her eyes as you _claim_ she speaks to you” – skepticism clear in her tone – “for we cannot fly. And if all of our kin could not allay her hunger for even a moment, feeding ourselves to her would do her little good. Better to wait until she resumes her old form and we can serve her in the manner we were meant for.”

“We don’t _know_ they died,” another insisted. “They might live within her, defending her from swallowed dangers.”

The leader sighed, as if this were an old debate. “Then we wish them well in patrolling her inner sea. But _we_ would rather live in this outer sea, awaiting her return.”

I gave up and left. Arguing with Nisser is like kicking seaweed-covered rocks – they deflect your words with slippery logic and stand firm. As intended by the Architect, who made some things _too_ well.

* * *

Wednesday briefly took human-form centuries ago, desperate to talk with me directly and to eat proper food. I had a feast laid for her, on a commandeered salvage ship whose crew fled in terror as she approached. She was bedraggled and oddly misshapen, like a half-finished sculpture of white clay. I didn’t care. I ran toward her, arms outstretched – and she struck me in the side with the flat of her suddenly-elongated trident, sending me reeling against a rail.

“Stay away from me,” she said in a voice like Earth-whale song, reaching for a bowl of pesto-covered pasta shells. “I don’t want to eat you.”

Barely bigger than I at that moment, she could still have devoured me alive. And uncontrollably might, if I got within arm’s reach. I saw the feral need in her ocean-colored eyes as they darkened from bleak grey to the shifting greens of a whirlpool. So I watched miserably from a distance as she ate with hasty gusto, holding a shouted conversation on the most complex and urgent matters of governance, which abruptly ended when whale-form took her. She smashed through the ship as I fled into the sky with a wordless howl of despair.

We never tried that again. The effort was too great for her, and the humiliation she felt at what she had become.

* * *

 

 I drift out of my reverie into her shadow, amid mindlessly-writhing remoras, below the belly which holds my sisters, our servants and friends, low Denizens and sailors, Nisser and ships’ boys and Rats, creatures of the Border Sea and lost things from all worlds. If sharks could weep, I would be salting the sea.

She’s still hated and feared. Everyone speaks respectfully of her when I’m in earshot, though I’ve never set her on anyone (and some exasperate me temptingly). But I know they see her only as a menace, and they silently wonder why I bother to seek and carry out her orders instead of abandoning her and either shirking my duties or trying to claim complete, albeit Key-less, authority.

I can’t. She is my lady, my lifelong friend, the soul of the sea and the heart of my world. Abandoning her would be like ripping off my own arm. Worse, because the arm would regrow but she is irreplaceable.

And to everyone elsewhere in the House, she’s just another of the “faithless Trustees” now diversely devastating their own demesnes – the ones who did this to her, the ones I hate with more heat than all the lightning in the Line of Storms.

A few of my Denizens continued to miss her, including the crew of the _Cuttlefish_. First Mate Chiasa was particularly fervent, reminiscing about her and asking after her whenever we met to discuss the scheduling of their voyages, and ever-stronger envy tinged her voice – envy of me, though I had lost so much and she so little. But the _Cuttlefish_ vanished decades ago, and ships continue to vanish one by one, probably prey to the powerful pirates which I have no time or ability to fight on my own.

I occasionally visit the Nisser colony. Restless and bored, they long for the shallower waters where they can eat, swim amid vibrant life, and do their job…yet still refuse to leave their hideout. I never speak of them, lest some fool get stabbed for trying to buy or coerce their services. But I can’t protect everyone from everything. The Nisser tell me fearfully that the sea is slowly being infused with Nothing-particles. They don’t know the source, but I do: countless leaks into the Void, plus pirate gunpowder, Accelerated Coal soot, and other substances which would normally have been cleaned up with the Key.

Nobody else cares about the sea itself. As long as _they_ can scuttle across it, grub up diseases and the detritus of the universe, and leave it to access their favorite ports, they don’t care that it’s becoming so dangerously polluted, sea levels are rising in some of the Secondary Realms as it extends into them, and our lady is running out of sea life to eat.

I would do anything to hear her laugh again, to embrace her, to watch her run across the water with kelp-amber hair rippling behind her. But someday, I may lose even her whale-self. She’s told me of a burning itch in her gut, a pain beyond hunger which she believes to be from a buildup of swallowed Nothing-particles. How long can she survive this?

And if it _doesn’_ t kill her, what then?

What will happen after she’s eaten every creature in the sea, and then eaten or smashed every ship which I can’t warn to shore fast enough? (Not that I’ll warn the Rats and pirates). Could she truly starve to death, as no Denizen ever has? Or will she drift forever in excruciating, ever-growing hunger, or sink and slowly drown when she can no longer swim?

No. _I’ll_ kill her before that happens. I’ll find a place where the boundary between sea and Void has thinned, and lead her there to throw herself through into Nothing. I’ve offered to do it before, though a fiery hand seemed to squeeze my heart as I spoke. But she doesn’t want to die yet, continuing to hope that another Will-fragment will someday free itself and choose an heir who can find her lost piece, claim her Key, and heal her hunger. Her incredible strength and patience keep mine alive.

 _Galea,_ I mentally murmur into the green gloom. _Galea, Galea, return to me._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is named after sea life: Ephyra (jellyfish larva, not usually capitalized), Laminaria (a genus of kelp), Littorina (a genus of periwinkle snail), and Galea (from the notoriously omnivorous tiger shark Galeocerdus cuvier). Because I’m a marine biology nerd. Surprised?


	4. Within the Whale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chiasa's backstory, after "Cuttlefish"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more violent than the previous chapters, but that's to be expected from pirates.

Rosy light shines from the walls of my world, illuminating my way through Lady Wednesday’s interior. A shadow slides over us; I look up as a school of fish swim high overhead. In the distance ahead, they drift down one by one, shining in the gloom like silver stars, succumbing to a diluted mix of digestive acid and dissolved Nothing. Jennie once asked me why the roof of Wednesday’s stomach isn’t blocked from our view by the tons of animals she’s constantly eating. I said there must be enough room for them to spread out, and for once my answer satisfied her.

Shel, the slave chained to me at the ankle, shoves my shoulder. His message: _Quit_ _admiring the scenery and get searching!_

I sigh and walk forward, looking down. Shel, a clerk before the Deluge and a salvage-ship “sailor” afterward, could never have pushed around a high officer in the outer world. But position and precedence are meaningless here. And he’s right -- I’d best fill a bag or face a beating.

Lost things swirl around my feet: coins and toys, garments and strange devices. I stir them carefully with the handle of my net, scanning them. Spotting a blue glitter, I scoop up an opal pendant set in gold filigree, on a gold chain. It goes into my bag, followed by some of the gadgets Feverfew likes. Their uses elude me, though I don’t really know what he does with _any_ of his treasure. When Shel isn’t looking, I kneel and reach through the debris to press my palm against the softly-ridged stomach floor, pretending Wednesday can feel it.

 _Why, Wednesday?_ I ask silently. _When you became a true creature of the sea, why did you leave us? I know, I know, to avoid eating us. But you didn’t eat Ephyra when she found you. No, you allow her to talk with you and serve you. Why her? Oh, why am I asking, I know the answer to_ that.

In an area we haven’t explored before, a green figure looms to the left. I turn and hasten to it, dragging Shel, who knows better than to defy me on this matter.

The Nisser is male, as handsome as all of his kind. One webbed hand clutches a trident; the other is extended in a _keep away!_ gesture. I run a hand along his arm, brush his long black hair away from his brow, and gaze into his sightless black eyes. Had I known this one? Millennia have begun to blur my memories of their faces.

The first time I saw Nisser standing in the Stomach, my heart pounded wildly and I nearly danced with joy. _They’re alive in here!_ I thought. But as I approached, I realized that they had survived being swallowed – only to get frozen by Feverfew’s sorcery. Tears came then, blinding me within my helmet, and I shouted a curse at all pirates.

Shel shoves me again and I move on, muttering.

A jellyfish pulses by; untroubled by the corrosive water. I’ve seen so many new creatures and other underwater wonders in this little realm, and Jennie is as fascinated by them as I. If only we’d had air-helmets when living on the outer sea!

I long to taste real seawater again, to leap and plunge through surf, to watch golden spears of sunlight in blue water and the ever-shifting nets and dapples of sun and shadow on pale seabed sand. I’ve known the waters of a thousand worlds, and miss nearly all of them. Some of the pirates like to swim in their harbor; the sight of them is torture to Jennie and me.

I fear for Jennie. Her courage and wit are indomitable, but her body is less resilient than a Denizen’s. Salvaging trips give her progressively-worse rashes – real ones, not the painless pink spots which Denizens buy and show off – as the water which mildly stings my skin erodes hers. She’s ashore today, sorting treasure, but could be sent back out into the Stomach at any time. Or sass the wrong pirate and get another of the beatings which leave her broken for days. I don’t know how long she can survive here, or how I’ll survive without her companionship.

Our helmets hold a small amount of air, imbued with sorcery which gives one breath the power of a thousand. Eventually, it begins to run out, and we turn for what we must now call home.

Feverfew’s Worldlet glows before us, a great iridescent pearl. Beauty within beauty, containing infinite evil.

* * *

 

The pirates enslaved as many of us as possible when they took us, killing only those who resolutely fought to the death. The rest they knocked senseless or incapacitated with non-lethal injuries, breaking one of Jennie’s legs and both of my arms, and threw us together in a heap. Jennie pulled herself across the _Cuttlefish_ ’s deck to me, face twisted with pain, as they hauled the corpses to the rail.

“They’ll serve us yet,” said one of the pirates heaving my lifelong shipmates overboard. “They’ll feed the fish that feed the whale that houses us.” Jennie pressed against my side.

“This is a fine ship.” Feverfew strode up, his bejeweled beard glinting and gleaming in the moonlight. “Methinks I’ll keep it.” He leered at us, then turned to his crew. “Solzakal, Marosa, connect them. Sallikin, fetch my augury and meet me at the _Shiver’s_ prow. Lirrus, guard the slaves. Everyone else, get to work.”

Both ships were steered through a shimmering portal, out of the night and into a strange harbor under a pink-tinged sun.

Jennie looked up at Lirrus, a lean man with dark brown curls. “Where are we?”

He grinned. “In Feverfew’s Worldlet, in Drowned Wednesday’s stomach.”

She grinned back, hazel eyes wide. “Wow!”

I burst out laughing – at my friend’s adventurousness, at everyone else’s puzzled expressions, and at the supreme absurdity of my fate. After missing my lady for so long, I’d been reunited with her in the strangest possible way.

There was little to laugh about for a while after that. Feverfew mended Jennie’s leg with a bit of sorcery which made her scream – I’m sure the monster made it as painful as possible – and led her away by a chain between her wrists. The rest of us were dragged off the ship and into a dim, empty shed and left there, linked together at the wrists by chains bolted to the walls. For the next few days, we lay there as our wounds healed and our spirits broke. There could be no escape from a whale’s stomach, and no hope of overpowering Feverfew’s secret sorceries and well-armed crew.

 _I’m with Wednesday at last,_ I told myself over and over. I summoned memories of diving with her off the _Cuttlefish_ ’s prow as her Nisser bodyguards looked on, of feasting with her in the sweet time before she grew reclusive in her eating, of her joy and mine whenever we docked with a cargo of some delicacy she especially liked. But trapped in this piece of another world, I felt farther from her than ever. And Jennie…what dangerous labor were they making her do?

When all of us could use our limbs again, we were led outside, still chained together. Feverfew explained our task of scavenging for swallowed treasure in Wednesday’s stomach, and showed us examples of the things he wanted. Then they took us to the Hot Lake, into whose Nothing-tinged mud an escaped-and-recaptured slave was partially immersed, screaming with agony. A warning.

Back at the harbor, we were taken to another shed, this one crowded with shackled slaves. Jennie was among those nearest the door, with skin reddened as if by sunburn but looking otherwise unhurt. I pretended to ignore her; if Feverfew knew of our friendship, he could hurt one of us by hurting the other.

“Here are your new shipless-mates,” announced one of the pirates. “You’d best become friends, as you’ll be together the rest of your lives….which might not be very long for some of you.” He chuckled nastily and left us, bolting the door.

I went to Jennie, not caring how I tugged the others chained to me. “Are you all right?”

“Yep. I get to find treasure inside a whale! The water makes me itch a lot, but it’s so much fun. The pirates don’t like questions, though. I asked Sallikin why Feverfew’s beard never goes up in flames from those silly burning match-cords, and she kicked me in the ribs and said she’d kick harder the next time I insulted her captain. And they won’t ever feed us. Isn’t that ridiculous? We’re in the stomach of the greatest glutton in the universe, and we have nothing to eat.”

I chuckled and ruffled her pale hair. “Nothing keeps you down.”

“Except Wednesday.”

I laughed. “No, she’s one of a kind. And so are you.”

* * *

 

I lie on the floor of the slave quarters, gazing into the darkness. Jennie sleeps beside me, and Denizens snore around us, but I can’t sleep. Another slave died today.

Chovi was salvaging beside me when she tripped and fell, breaking open a barely-scabbed whip gash on her back and cutting her leg deeply on a sharp-faceted cluster of crystals. As dissolved Nothing entered her blood and eroded her exposed muscles, the wounds rapidly grew and inflamed, and tremors wracked her body. When she staggered with me through the water gate, the guards saw that she would be of no further use. They removed her shackles and threw her out the gate, to slowly drown and be digested, adding to the pile of golden bones which we must wade through twice on every foray.

That could happen to any of us, at any time. We’re disposable. More captives have arrived after us, and some are dead already. And it might be the _bes_ t fate we could have, the alternatives being slow immersion in the Hot Lake or an absolute eternity of slavery.

Dim moonlight through a window behind me seems to grow dimmer for a moment. A faint scrabbling comes from that direction and I sit up, squinting around, unable to see anything. The scrabbling grows more distant. Then, far ahead:

A small green light.

A metallic _snap_.

A gasp.

A sibilant “ _Shhh._ ”

Unintelligible whispers.

This happens again, and again, coming ever closer. I’m rigid with apprehension. Is this some new trick of Feverfew’s, to keep us uncertain and afraid?

A shape darker than the darkness appears before me, extending a hand holding what looks like a tiny green cloud. The cloud touches one of my wrist shackles – which snaps open!

At the sound by her ear, Jennie jerks awake with a little gasp. I seize her shoulder to still her, but the light-bearer has heard. He unchains my other wrist, then hers.

“Go to the nearest window,” he whispers.

We creep to the wall and walk along it to stand below the empty window. Five other Denizens are there, very faintly visible. The strange man takes my hand and guides it to a rope dangling from the sill.

“Climb out,” he orders.

One by one, we climb the rope, swing our legs around through the window with the ease of sailors, and descend feet-first. A woman stands outside, holding the rope’s other end. When we’re all on the ground, she pulls the rope out and slings it in a coil over one shoulder. The man emerges through the window and climbs down the wall, clinging to its wood somehow, pausing often to wipe it above him with the green cloud he clutches.

Once on the ground, he beckons us and the pair begin running. We follow, darting through moonlight between palm-clumps and rock outcrops, toward the inland hills. Jennie pants as I tug her along, up the nearest slope and around a small ridge which hides us from the harbor. The woman raises a hand, and we halt.

“Who are you?” someone whispers.

Our rescuer turns and grins at us -- a small man with a rather froglike face, wide of eyes and mouth. “You have been freed by the goodness of the great Carp, to join us as his Followers.” From a pouch at his belt, he produces the wad of glowing green material. “The Carp cannot directly break your shackles from so far away, but has infused his moss with the power to do so. The moss also obliterates the marks of my cleats and clawed gloves on the shed walls, so the pirates won’t know how we got in and out. I am Rheo, eighty-seventh Follower of the Carp. This is Kessa, one-hundred-forty-second Follower of the Carp.”

“Why did you free a Piper’s child?” Kessa hisses. “She can’t keep up with us.”

I lift Jennie onto my shoulders. “Yes she can.”

“No. We’ll be going through thick vegetation and keeping low.”

Jennie slides down until her head is level with mine, limbs wrapped around me like a baby monkey on its mother’s back. “Don’t leave me,” she murmurs in my ear.

“Never.” I glare at them. “This Carp can have both of us, or neither.”

“She noticed me,” says Rheo. “I couldn’t let her stay there to tell of us.”

Kessa shrugs. “Keep up, then. If you fall behind and get caught, we won’t come back to save you, but you had better say nothing of us, or hundreds of your fellow ex-slaves will die.” They turn and we ascend.

We do struggle through stunted trees at first, bending double at times, Jennie squealing quietly as branches whip her face. But soon we emerge into a tall forest with a high, dense canopy. I raise Jennie to my shoulders again as we pick our long-legged way through lush groundcover and soft mud. The canopy blocks most of the moonlight, but we follow Rheo’s raised moss-torch.

“’ _Fellow ex-slaves,’_ ” I whisper to myself, tasting the nearly-unthinkable words. Could I really, truly be free now?

A wall of green light rises before us – a cliff face covered in the moss. Rheo and Kessa plunge through as if it were a waterfall, and we follow, passing into a black tunnel barely illuminated by patches of moss growing here and there. At Rheo’s bidding, we walk single file, clutching the backs of each other’s shirts.

A red-gold glow appears ahead. Abruptly, we enter an open space full of light. I shut my eyes against the brightness for a minute, open them, and look across a vast cavern of pale stone with a ledge running along its walls. Denizens walk the ledge, coming and going between other tunnel openings. Unlike Rheo and Kessa, most have patches of the moss on their clothes and skin. I lift Jennie from my shoulders, look down as I set her on her feet, and gasp.

A terraced amphitheater lies below us. A sealed glass tank fills the amphitheater’s center, and circling within is a fish. A magnificent golden fish, ten feet long from elegant moustache-like barbels to translucent fan-shaped tail, it seems to glitter all over with tiny moving sparks.

“O Carp, we bring you new Followers,” Kessa calls.

It pauses to look at us with great round eyes.

“Greetings,” it says in a voice which could be male or female.

“What _is_ _that_?” Jennie asks in awe.

It turns slightly toward her, pupils contracting as if squinting to see something very small. “Mind your manners, child. I am not a thing to be called _what_ and _that_. I am a person, the greatest you will ever know. I am Part Three of the Architect’s Will. Someday, the Architect’s Rightful Heir will come for me and liberate you, destroying the pirates who enslaved you and casting down the treacherous Trustees who split and imprisoned me, restoring you to the House and the House to its true glory.”

 _Don’t you dare hurt Wednesday,_ I think. _Heal her. Take the Key that she can no longer use, take away the pain of her hunger, and return her to the form that – that I know she wants. If you can do this, and get us out of here too, I will serve you._

“From left to right, I designate you my four-hundred-eleventh through four-hundred-eighteenth Followers. Make yourselves at home in my domain.” It turns away, signaling an end to the conversation.

Rheo leads us down another tunnel, better lit than the first. “I’ll take you to our living chambers, which are much nicer than those slave sheds. After you’ve rested a bit, we’ll begin to instruct you in the duties of serving the Carp.”

“I’d rather _eat_ the Carp,” Jennie mutters.

He rounds on her, scowling ferociously. “How dare you speak so?!”

“What? You know the pirates starved us.”

I clout her ear lightly. “She won’t do it again.”

“You couldn’t eat him if you tried. None of us could. He is wise and powerful beyond all we can imagine, constrained only by Feverfew’s unnatural sorcery, and when he is freed, we will rise in his wake. If we have faith in him and treat him with _reverence and respec_ t. I’ll hear no more of your blasphemy.” He strides more swiftly, getting far ahead of us.

“I couldn’t possibly worship that snooty fish,” Jennie grumbles.

“I can,” I say. Not the fish, perhaps, but what it represents – a chance at the life I thought I’d lost forever with the Border Sea. I imagine my own Carp glowing golden in my core, a living thing radiating strength and patient hope for a future of freedom and the seas.

**Author's Note:**

> In this rewrite, Dame Universe-Destroyer won’t get her way, and both Wednesday and the House (including its sea) will survive. The chapters after this are backstories, though I might write more adventures for the dream team. Suggestions are welcome.
> 
> I named Chiasa after the black swallower Chiasmodon niger, a deep-sea fish able to swallow animals four times its size, and Jennie after the insatiably gluttonous canine heroine of Maurice Sendak’s lovely book, Higgledy Piggledy Pop!
> 
> I don’t know if any Piper’s children had followed the Carp, or if a Key can make someone (besides the wielder, as we saw in Superior Saturday) breathe underwater, or if non-Trustee Denizens besides Wednesday’s Dawn can learn to shapeshift. But as they say in the House, I don’t give a Raised Rat’s whisker. Apologies to the Rats.


End file.
